Xiaomi Redmi 2 quick review

[eyefly]

Yesterday, the mailman arrived with a Redmi 2 that I ordered from DX.com about two weeks ago. The Redmi came in a plain box, with as only accessory the charger. It cost me 129 euro, which is cheap, considering it has a Snapdragon 410 MSM8916 quad core processor and a 1280 x 720 gorilla glass screen and supports 1080p playback. Full specs can be found at gsmarena.



After removing protective plastics and placing the battery, I turned it on, and encountered the first problem; the interface was in Chinese and since the Redmi comes with a Miui layer, the settings menu was very different from stock Android interface. After messing around with random menu items for 30 minutes, I decided to go and look around on the web to find an answer. It took me two hours to discover that everybody who encountered this problem, did so with an earlier version of Miui and they had completely rearranged the menu after, so no luck there. I ended up going to the Chinese restaurant on the corner and have them change it for me. It took the guy behind the counter 5 minutes to figure it out; the language settings are three levels deep. To those that come after me: here is how you change the language settings on the Xiaomi Redmi 2 with android 4.4.4 and miui6.2.4, if it is set to Chinese:

Open settings on the main screen (the cogwheel). First, scroll all the way down to the last icon, the (i), and check if you have the same version of Android and Miui as me. Now, go back to the main settings menu, scroll down to the second block of icons, the last icon of the block is round and grey, with a couple of dots in it. Click on this menu item, in the next screen choose the third item in the list, then choose the first clickable item from the top. You should be in the language settings now.

With that cleared, I went on to explore the menu. The phone responds nicely, even with all the Chinese bloatware that is on there. I'm never to happy with bloatware (pre-installed battery savers, virus scanners, games, obscure social networking platforms and the likes) so I proceeded to the app settings to clean the phone up. Alas; these programs are all 'built in software' and as such you can only disable them, not completely remove them, unless you root the phone and do it manually. Removing icons from the main screen with drag-and-trash, as in Android, doesn't work, another disadvantage. However, he icons disappear when you disable the apps and when all the superfluous stuff is disabled, it leaves a pretty clean screen.

Finally, a note about the camera: it makes reasonable pictures, about as good as any Chinese phone in this price range.

This brings me to my conclusion:

the Xiaomi Redmi is a nice phone, with, considering its price, very good specifications. The Miui interface is a rather cluttered, especially the settings menu, and customizing the phone will require root and/or flashing a custom ROM. The camera is average, the screen quality is good. As far as I can tell in this short time, battery life is excellent.

Personally, I prefer a stock Android to the Miui skin. But as long as you stay on the main screen, Miui is pretty intuitive. The phone's specs are up to the challenge, so that even when leaving the phone as is, you will have a good user experience. I'll give this phone a 7 out of 10. This would have been an 8, if it had been easier to customize it.

[claude07]

Thanks for review @"eyefly", very helpful ... I'm considering buying Xiaomi Redmi 2 advanced version (2GB/16GB), can you tell me if you had any problems with the phone so far? Are there any known issues with the phone? I've had redmi 1s and it was overheating on regular basis...

[eyefly]

I flashed Cyanogenmod on it, because I didn't like the MIUI OS. That worked out really well. The hardware is excellent and no overheating problems or reboots.

[GizBeat]

I flashed Cyanogenmod on it, because I didn't like the MIUI OS. That worked out really well. The hardware is excellent and no overheating problems or reboots.

This is a very good phone and I think can still be recommended if can find the Prime/Pro version for around $100. Will have the Redmi 3 Mini review coming up next week.

[eyefly]

I like it even better with CM11. I am posting a how-to today